The present invention relates to storage devices for baseball bats and the like, and more particularly to a disassemblable stand for baseball bats and the like which can be easily transported and stored.
Professional baseball teams have built-in racks for their baseball bats conveniently located in their dugouts. These built-in racks provide a convenient way for the professional teams to store their bats in an organized and easily retrievable manner. Such racks are not available at local playgrounds and ball fields where many games are played in a pickup fashion or by organized local leagues and teams. In these situations, the bats are generally strewn on the ground making them difficult to locate and creating a potential hazard for team members and other players. In addition, the bats may get dirty and/or damaged if they are left lying on the ground.
To alleviate these problems, baseball players oftentimes hang their bats on the chain fence backstop by inserting the small handle end of the bat through the chain link opening and letting the bat hang at an acute angle to the chain link fence. This will generally hold the bats satisfactorily; however, if during the course of the game, the backstop is jostled by one of the players or hit by an errant or foul ball, the bats will become dislodged from their position in the chain link fence and fall to the ground. Additionally, the bats jutting out from the backstop create a potential hazard. Furthermore, to choose a bat for hitting, a player must generally look at the top handle end of the bat which is marked with a numeral indicating the length of the bat. It is inconvenient for the player to have to remove the bat from the backstop, look at the handle end of the bat to perceive and length thereof, and replace it if it happens to be the wrong bat.
Prior art devices have addressed these problems in an unsatisfactory manner. For example, holders have been developed, such as U.S. Design Pat. No. 242,097, which can be hung directly from a chain link backstop. In many instances, the local playground and ball fields do not have such backstops thereby rendering these hang-on type devices of the prior art useless. In addition, these devices have dangerous hooks, clamps, hinges, etc. Other prior art devices such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,889,863, 4,193,495 and 4,629,065 are bulky making them inconvenient to use and transport.